Gingerbread Cookies

Children love making and decorating these tasty little gingerbread cookie people. Unrefined cane sugar is a naturally processed sweetener where the juice from organically grown sugar cane is simply extracted and dehydrated. Sucanat (which stands for "sugar cane natural") and Rapadura are two name brads for this product.

1/4 cup butter, softened
 1/4 cup dried cane juice
 1/4 cup brown rice syrup
 1/4 cup blackstrap molasses
 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
2 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour

½ cup unbleached white flour
 1 teaspoon baking soda
 1/4 teaspoon cloves
 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon sea salt
 1/4-1/2 cup orange juice

Decorations:
 raisins
 papaya bits
 almonds
 dried cranberries (unsweetened)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  In a large mixing bowl, blend Earth Balance and dried cane juice until creamy.  Add syrup, molasses, and ginger; mix well.  In a separate bowl, combine flours, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, and salt.  Add dry mixture to wet ingredients a little at a time, alternating with orange juice as needed.  Work in the last of the flour mixture with your hands.  Lightly oil a cookie sheet and roll the dough directly onto it.  Cut out figures with a cookie cutter or make up your own shapes.  Remove the scraps of dough between cutouts to make more cookies.  Add decorations before baking. Bake 8 minutes or longer according to the thickness of the dough.